The moment I heard her voice, I knew.
He was gone.
Tears poured forth and dissolved into trembling sobs.
My Granddaddy, my wonderful Granddaddy, was gone. Memories stabbed at my heart: the precious hours we spent compiling his life story, sitting beside him at Christmastime to hear his dry commentary on the gifts, and watching him bail hay from our kitchen window in sweltering July summers.
Then there, in my heart, was the rich sound of his laughter and his booming “Hey!” each time someone walked in the room.
Oh, how I loved that man.
He died back in May, but my heart still aches with the loss.
Losing the people we love is never easy, yet there is hope on the horizon.
God is there, whether you believe in Him or not, think He is relevant or not, or think He cares or not. He is there, and He does offer comfort.
My Granddaddy had been confined to his bed for the last year of his life, and he was miserable.
Working on our farm was his passion, his love, his dream. His immobility and helplessness were a nightmare for him. As hard as it was to say goodbye, how could I deny him his longing to walk on golden streets? He was ready to go home.
I know my loss, as deeply as it cut me, does not compare with the pain of many. I have never lost a parent, a child, a spouse or a best friend.
I also know that I will see him again.
In his mid-twenties, long before I was anything more than a figment of a faraway dream, my Granddaddy decided to follow Christ. I was not quite six years old when I answered the call of God upon my own heart.
Following God isn’t easy—at all. It is a day-by-day struggle, a constant fight to follow Him. But, oh, how beautiful a life it can be.
Perfection is not required. Neither is a holier-than-thou attitude. All you need is a willing heart that longs for something more.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.” -John 14:1-4
Have a question or comment, a rant or a rave? Don't hold back...
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Friday, September 21, 2007
The Giving Tree
“TIMBER!”
Everyone’s heads swiveled toward Mrs. Wanda’s front yard, where a towering tree fell in a graceful arc across her driveway.
One of the mission team’s objectives that week was to chop down a tree that was leaning dangerously over a power line. Watching it fall, we all breathed a collective side of relief. It would still have to be chopped up for firewood, but at least the risky part was behind us.
Mrs. Wanda’s neighbor dropped by to check our progress and did a double take at the sight of tree. He told us that the tree was a black walnut, and that just last year, he had sold one from his own yard for about $500. We were thrilled and went into the house to tell Mrs. Wanda the good news. We told her about the tree’s possible worth and that AO would help her find a buyer. Thrilled, she ran to find her husband Gary to tell him the news.
Later, Wanda emerged from the house.
“I’ve decided to give whatever money ya’ll get from the tree to Appalachian Outreach,” she said. “Ya’ll have done so much to help us that it is the least we could do.”
Mrs. Wanda needed that money.
Neither she nor her husband was able to work, her mother was in the nursing home and she was tending to her sick friend. I had talked with her enough to know that making ends meet was no easy thing for her family. From week to week, she could barely scrounge up enough money for the essentials.
But still she gave.
Mrs. Wanda gave freely from the depth of her own poverty. When I remember her, I smile, and I think of the story of the widow’s offering.
“Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.’”
Mark 12:43-44
Giving isn’t all about dollars and cents, but it is about sacrifice.
Mrs. Wanda made for an unlikely teacher, but God used her glimmering example to show me a sliver of true generosity.
I couldn’t forget her if I tried.
Everyone’s heads swiveled toward Mrs. Wanda’s front yard, where a towering tree fell in a graceful arc across her driveway.
One of the mission team’s objectives that week was to chop down a tree that was leaning dangerously over a power line. Watching it fall, we all breathed a collective side of relief. It would still have to be chopped up for firewood, but at least the risky part was behind us.
Mrs. Wanda’s neighbor dropped by to check our progress and did a double take at the sight of tree. He told us that the tree was a black walnut, and that just last year, he had sold one from his own yard for about $500. We were thrilled and went into the house to tell Mrs. Wanda the good news. We told her about the tree’s possible worth and that AO would help her find a buyer. Thrilled, she ran to find her husband Gary to tell him the news.
Later, Wanda emerged from the house.
“I’ve decided to give whatever money ya’ll get from the tree to Appalachian Outreach,” she said. “Ya’ll have done so much to help us that it is the least we could do.”
Mrs. Wanda needed that money.
Neither she nor her husband was able to work, her mother was in the nursing home and she was tending to her sick friend. I had talked with her enough to know that making ends meet was no easy thing for her family. From week to week, she could barely scrounge up enough money for the essentials.
But still she gave.
Mrs. Wanda gave freely from the depth of her own poverty. When I remember her, I smile, and I think of the story of the widow’s offering.
“Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a fraction of a penny.
Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, ‘I tell you the truth, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything—all she had to live on.’”
Mark 12:43-44
Giving isn’t all about dollars and cents, but it is about sacrifice.
Mrs. Wanda made for an unlikely teacher, but God used her glimmering example to show me a sliver of true generosity.
I couldn’t forget her if I tried.
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Love one another?
Blood-colored rust covered the tin roof, and flakes of white paint peeled off to reveal rotten wood siding.
My heart twisted at the sight of the home.
It was the sixth week of my work with Appalachian Outreach, a poverty relief organization in the mountains of East Tennessee, and I was spent. While my fellow missionary David parked the truck, I glanced again over the list of projects for this home that week and sighed. The list was lengthy.
We were to replace the tin roof, convert a porch into a bedroom, hang T1-11 siding on two sides of the house, replace the exterior doors, completely rewire the home, and paint. I sighed once more.
Then she walked out.
Loud, brash and spunky, Wanda Smith is not someone that I will soon forget. Her skin shone with perspiration and several inches of cleavage peeked out of her tank top. I blinked in shock when I realized that yes, that really was a dollar bill in there. Only slightly quieter than Wanda was the incessant yipping of her three tiny dogs, which ran in and out of the house with reckless abandon.
Mrs. Wanda was so grateful and thrilled that we were there and grabbed us by the arms to take us inside her home.
Walking in, we took note of the state of the kitchen floor. Yellowed in some areas and torn in others, the linoleum was in poor shape. Our project list didn’t include any interior work, however. It was strictly outdoors this time, and even then it was on the verge of being too much.
My heart lurched as we stepped inside the tiny living room. A rail thin woman lay on a hospital bed, propped up on a cluster of pillows. She said little. Mrs. Wanda, however, more than compensated for the woman’s quiet. She chattered on about painting the kitchen recently with donated paint. It was all I could do to take my eyes off of the woman, though. Back home, I had watched my own grandfather get very ill and thin, but I had never seen anyone look like she did.
Chatting all the while, Mrs. Wanda completed her tour and walked us back outside.
“That was Lesa,” she whispered. “She’s got the HIV and only has a few months left.”
Further probing let us know that Lesa was not even blood-kin to her, but a friend that she had taken in because her own family didn’t want her. My heart swelled, and I knew that we just had to somehow make this house into a real home for Mrs. Wanda.
Next time, I’ll finish telling the rest of Mrs. Wanda’s story (the most incredible that I encountered this summer), but I just had to go on and introduce her to you. She is a woman of incredible strength and one that I deeply admire. This same day, the first day that we met her, Mrs. Wanda made a statement that I will never forget. She said that as a teenager she would go, much like we were going, from home to home doing odd jobs for people that needed help but could not afford it. “I never thought I would ever need to be on the receiving end.”
I guess not many people ever really do. Before this summer, I drove by ramshackle houses and trailers without giving thought to the struggling people that sleep within their walls. Even now, I catch myself doing the same thing. It is so easy to become consumed in what I am doing and lose sight of what I could be doing to lend a hand. Whether the idea of raw, painful poverty is foreign to you or not, I encourage you to open your eyes and your heart to the people around you. I believe that the love of Jesus Christ is expressed most poignantly here on earth when we simply take the time to love one another.
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"
1 John 3:18
My heart twisted at the sight of the home.
It was the sixth week of my work with Appalachian Outreach, a poverty relief organization in the mountains of East Tennessee, and I was spent. While my fellow missionary David parked the truck, I glanced again over the list of projects for this home that week and sighed. The list was lengthy.
We were to replace the tin roof, convert a porch into a bedroom, hang T1-11 siding on two sides of the house, replace the exterior doors, completely rewire the home, and paint. I sighed once more.
Then she walked out.
Loud, brash and spunky, Wanda Smith is not someone that I will soon forget. Her skin shone with perspiration and several inches of cleavage peeked out of her tank top. I blinked in shock when I realized that yes, that really was a dollar bill in there. Only slightly quieter than Wanda was the incessant yipping of her three tiny dogs, which ran in and out of the house with reckless abandon.
Mrs. Wanda was so grateful and thrilled that we were there and grabbed us by the arms to take us inside her home.
Walking in, we took note of the state of the kitchen floor. Yellowed in some areas and torn in others, the linoleum was in poor shape. Our project list didn’t include any interior work, however. It was strictly outdoors this time, and even then it was on the verge of being too much.
My heart lurched as we stepped inside the tiny living room. A rail thin woman lay on a hospital bed, propped up on a cluster of pillows. She said little. Mrs. Wanda, however, more than compensated for the woman’s quiet. She chattered on about painting the kitchen recently with donated paint. It was all I could do to take my eyes off of the woman, though. Back home, I had watched my own grandfather get very ill and thin, but I had never seen anyone look like she did.
Chatting all the while, Mrs. Wanda completed her tour and walked us back outside.
“That was Lesa,” she whispered. “She’s got the HIV and only has a few months left.”
Further probing let us know that Lesa was not even blood-kin to her, but a friend that she had taken in because her own family didn’t want her. My heart swelled, and I knew that we just had to somehow make this house into a real home for Mrs. Wanda.
Next time, I’ll finish telling the rest of Mrs. Wanda’s story (the most incredible that I encountered this summer), but I just had to go on and introduce her to you. She is a woman of incredible strength and one that I deeply admire. This same day, the first day that we met her, Mrs. Wanda made a statement that I will never forget. She said that as a teenager she would go, much like we were going, from home to home doing odd jobs for people that needed help but could not afford it. “I never thought I would ever need to be on the receiving end.”
I guess not many people ever really do. Before this summer, I drove by ramshackle houses and trailers without giving thought to the struggling people that sleep within their walls. Even now, I catch myself doing the same thing. It is so easy to become consumed in what I am doing and lose sight of what I could be doing to lend a hand. Whether the idea of raw, painful poverty is foreign to you or not, I encourage you to open your eyes and your heart to the people around you. I believe that the love of Jesus Christ is expressed most poignantly here on earth when we simply take the time to love one another.
"This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. If anyone has material possessions and sees his brother in need but has no pity on him, how can the love of God be in him?"
1 John 3:18
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Fear not?
I gripped a flashlight in one hand and a net in the other as I tiptoed along the waterline, my eyes scanning the water for the slightest movement. My best friend’s laughter rose up behind me and I spun around just in time to see her race across the dunes in hot pursuit. She scooped up the scuttling creature in one motion and then bolted toward me to show off her prize. With narrowed eyes, I scrutinized the sand crab and shuddered.
That night, as we prowled the sands beneath an ebony sky, I tried with all my might to capture one of the offending beasts myself. Each time I spotted one, I sprinted toward it with my net waving in front of me like a flag. As I neared it, though, fear always caught in my throat, sending me bolting for safety.
I was twelve then, and now nineteen—but even seven years later, I find that bravery still often eludes me in the simplest of circumstances. My fears have stretched beyond sand crabs, but for certain, they still exist and still have the power to keep me locked up within my own shell.
It is because of my own fears and reservations that even I am still surprised when I look back at the events of this incredible summer. I spent ten weeks in the mountains of East Tennessee doing home repair as a summer missionary for Appalachian Outreach, a poverty-relief organization. I went because I felt the call of God on my heart, and I came home forever changed.
Christians talk a lot about “getting out of their comfort zones,” a phrase that, as it sounds, simply means escaping the realm of activity where one feels most safe and well, comfortable. We all have them. As this summer began and I learned the details of my new job, my own comfort zone soon became a distant memory.
Appalachian Outreach, which most fondly refer to as AO, offers countless ministries to the impoverished of the area. A food pantry, clothing closet and homeless shelter are just a few of the ways that AO reaches out to the community. I, however, was one of the missionaries assigned to lead teams in doing week long home repair projects.
My fears came alive during my very first week, as I found myself clambering up a ladder and climbing onto a roof. Frozen by my terror, I clung to the ridge cap and gingerly slid shingles down to my fellow missionaries. As I sat there feeling useless, my mind filled with questions and doubts.
I asked God why.
And then I asked Him again. And again.
I knew, and I know, that He could have easily filled my position with someone else, okay, anyone else that could have outworked me. I had never used a power tool in my life. I didn’t know the difference between a drywall screw and a decking screw. I couldn’t hammer for the life of me. I was scared out of my mind.
The result? The most difficult, life-changing, and incredible summer of my life.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do know Someone who does. In this blog, which I will write in every Sunday for The Chanticleer, I want to take you along on my journey of faith in God. I intend to hold nothing back, and I ask the same of anyone reading this. Any feedback is more than welcome.
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name: you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior..."
Isaiah 42: 1b-3a
That night, as we prowled the sands beneath an ebony sky, I tried with all my might to capture one of the offending beasts myself. Each time I spotted one, I sprinted toward it with my net waving in front of me like a flag. As I neared it, though, fear always caught in my throat, sending me bolting for safety.
I was twelve then, and now nineteen—but even seven years later, I find that bravery still often eludes me in the simplest of circumstances. My fears have stretched beyond sand crabs, but for certain, they still exist and still have the power to keep me locked up within my own shell.
It is because of my own fears and reservations that even I am still surprised when I look back at the events of this incredible summer. I spent ten weeks in the mountains of East Tennessee doing home repair as a summer missionary for Appalachian Outreach, a poverty-relief organization. I went because I felt the call of God on my heart, and I came home forever changed.
Christians talk a lot about “getting out of their comfort zones,” a phrase that, as it sounds, simply means escaping the realm of activity where one feels most safe and well, comfortable. We all have them. As this summer began and I learned the details of my new job, my own comfort zone soon became a distant memory.
Appalachian Outreach, which most fondly refer to as AO, offers countless ministries to the impoverished of the area. A food pantry, clothing closet and homeless shelter are just a few of the ways that AO reaches out to the community. I, however, was one of the missionaries assigned to lead teams in doing week long home repair projects.
My fears came alive during my very first week, as I found myself clambering up a ladder and climbing onto a roof. Frozen by my terror, I clung to the ridge cap and gingerly slid shingles down to my fellow missionaries. As I sat there feeling useless, my mind filled with questions and doubts.
I asked God why.
And then I asked Him again. And again.
I knew, and I know, that He could have easily filled my position with someone else, okay, anyone else that could have outworked me. I had never used a power tool in my life. I didn’t know the difference between a drywall screw and a decking screw. I couldn’t hammer for the life of me. I was scared out of my mind.
The result? The most difficult, life-changing, and incredible summer of my life.
I don’t pretend to have all the answers, but I do know Someone who does. In this blog, which I will write in every Sunday for The Chanticleer, I want to take you along on my journey of faith in God. I intend to hold nothing back, and I ask the same of anyone reading this. Any feedback is more than welcome.
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name: you are mine.
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
For I am the Lord, your God,
the Holy One of Israel, your Savior..."
Isaiah 42: 1b-3a
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